A bird in the hand is just as much meat as proverb

by Trilety Wade

The endurance of backyard barbecues. Another rough rub at her patience. Wild was not allowed here, a truth verified by lawns of pristine artifice, and pubic hair trimmed to the skin. But the nature of hair was an assumption because, of course, she’d never seen her neighbors naked, and come to think of it, wouldn’t it be the non-wild ones who shunned their own touch only to let their lowers grow lush, or would it be the other way around where the non-wild ones tamed their hair and eschewed their own curly luxuriance?

The grill sizzled and hissed as we traded stories of our youth. I referred to myself as “wild,” as I always do, and my liver winced at my spleen in a reflex of shame because all my organs knew – better than me – that promiscuity is less about rebellion and more about poor decision-making. More accurately, I was as easy as pie and as wild as a guinea pig. It’s all wrong once again though, because pie is easy only to eat, but a bitch to bake. Fillings risk running loose, and crusts threaten to be tough. Pie is not a piece of cake. Even in all my guinea pig ways, I dreamed of being a curvy capybara, who fucked many in a wild orgy on the shore, instead of sucking one in the back lot of a bar.

I walked away from the direct smoke of coal to the slow heat of crock-pot where another neighbor stood guard over slabs of saucy pork. From the sacred vessel, I pulled out a slice of meat and placed it in the palm of my hand, lifting it to the neighbor’s lips. He looked me dead in the still-living parts of my eyes and leaned into my hand to suck the sauce from the meat of pig and palm. His tongue was all muscle, and I was all nerve, as he lapped the spicy stream from the crevices of my shallow lifeline. With the tenacity of cat, he continued to lick the pink from the pork until I was just a handful of animal. He pressed his conspicuous chin into the fatty mantle of my hypothenar eminence, and the weight of his head reminded me I was as much longing body as longing mind. I hollowed my palm to his face so he could privately chew his secret feast in the suction cup cave of my own carving until I saw his final swallow swell his snake throat with a rodent bulge. . . and I wished to be a mouse. The August breeze swirled my body and whipped my drenched palm until I felt the fizzle and tingle of his saliva evaporating from my once-wet flesh.

The rest of the guests still surrounded the grill, pleased with the sacrifice to their hungry god. She was in a confused state of famished and full, hot and cold, such that she barely registered his lips at her ear as he whispered, “If the grass is greener on the other side, then jump the fence.”

Trilety Wade

Trilety Wade writes. The “body” is a running theme of her work. She writes essays, short fiction, and poetry. Rules are rarely followed tho she doesn't shun them, because sometimes the confines of guidelines are cozy.

More: https://trilety.substack.com